


Lies & Consequences

by Herumor



Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 08:19:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2060817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Herumor/pseuds/Herumor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally posted on FFN, I've been a little lazy with the updates, but I'm aiming to finish this story soon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lies & Consequences

### Lies & Consequences

Logan's thoughts are _italics_ , his chorus's are in **_bold_**.

 

Chapter 1

### Terminal City - October 14, 2021 09:50 AM

Logan Cale hadn't felt so energized in, well, years actually. It was the tired, relaxed lassitude one associated with prolonged physical activities, the mix of exhaustion, relaxation and euphoria that only a good fix of endorphins, earned the old-fashioned way, could bring.

He felt _bubbly_.

Like a teenager all over again...

And _still_...

He still had felt a twinge of apprehension, much like the usual, impending sense of doom that had been his constant companion since starting Eyes Only, all those months ago... a lifetime ago...

He had shaken himself from that train of thought, reminding himself that, while his inner commentator was a pessimist and a cynic (indeed, he had his own inner Greek Chorus to remind him of everything that could go wrong, of everything that _had_ ), he had ample reasons to feel so good.

Two weeks before, he was ready to give up.

After holding hands with Max on the roof, that day gone over six months, he had felt that they could, at least, be friends again, _really_ be friends, like they had been during their first year. But, since the ever-present, heavy sexual tension between Max and him (he had long ago admitted to himself that it was exactly that) had ... come to an end ( _don't think about that, don't think about him, don't think about them..._ ) he wanted, he expected, to get his confidante, his best friend, back.

Of course, he had been disabused of that notion quickly.

Almost immediately, Max had started to avoid him. He would spot her across a room, catch her eye, smile and wave, and she would return it, that small smile that he called his...

But as soon as he tried to approach her, something ( _someone_ ) would catch his attention, and a moment later she would be gone.

At first he didn't given it much thought, hadn't even noticed. After all, they were trying to create a self-sustaining city from a pile of toxic rubble and a bunch of shell-shocked soldiers; granted, a bunch of extremely capable, adapting, dedicated SUPER-soldiers, but still...

It had taken him a whole three weeks to start to see the pattern ( _ **for someone who calls himself Eyes Only you can be pretty oblivious when it suits you**_... chanted his inner voice)-and the guilty stares of some of the transgenics who seemed to always need his attention in the less opportune times.

Then he really had started paying attention to the world flowing around him, to watch the stares fixed on him every time he walked into a room.

He had chalked it up to paranoia, exhaustion, the toxins in the air finally starting to affect him, until he could not avoid the facts any longer ( _ **and it only took you the better part of a month ...quite the reporter you are...**_ ).

Luke and some of the other technology-minded residents, his closest companions since the siege began, had looked at him with sympathy and a twinge of pity.

In others, the pity mixed with amazement.

And others held nothing but contempt for him.

Joshua couldn't look him in the eye anymore; he just babbled and spoke to his left shoulder.

Alec was...Alec ( _fuck him anyway_ ).

Max...

Max would act as if nothing happened: he had been asked (by Luke) to sit in on the byweekly council meetings, and while she would never look at him unless he was speaking, or she asked him a question, she acted like nothing was amiss.

On occasion he would catch her unaware, and he could swear he'd see something there, a mixture of the old affection and...guilt? He hadn't been sure of anything by that point, but there was no mistaking the oh-so-familiar soldier mask that would snap into place in an instant, before she found some reason to be, well, somewhere else. And it wasn't the familiar nervousness, he had long ago catalogued all her "tells" (she might be geneticaly engineered soldier with an iron will, but he _knew_ her), the lip-nibbling, the snort coupled with the angry, disbelieving expression, even the cocky, hand-on-hip pose that used to send Sketchy running for his life.

There'd been nothing there. He did not rate attitude. Even a sector cop just doing his job would get more emotion from her.

He'd been at a loss. Why had she held his hand? Was she just "emotional?" Had she simply gotten carried away in the moment? He didn't know, and it was eating at him.

So he did what he usually did, threw himself into his work.

Days became weeks, then months, until he received an email from his contacts in LA. The lab tech who had skipped town almost a year before, leaving them empty-handed and heartbroken, had resurfaced there after purchasing a new identity as a research assistant in a big bio chem firm. Purchased it from _his_ contact. _Ah, the irony_.

So he'd waited. ' _Let him settle into his new life, let him gain something to lose.'_

Then he contacted him.

The offer had been simple: finish what he had started, receive full payment and go on with his life, or be exposed to his employers and the world.

And three days ago, Logan had received a package containing his heart's desire.

He had spent most of his (many) waking hours deciding what to do: walk up to her and give her the vial? Slip it to her in secret? He went through hundreds of variations of the scenario, until he realized that he would just have to talk to her; if nothing else, it would make living around her safer...

One other thought that occurred to him was that for a young, loving couple, Max and Alec acted just as they always had, fighting like children: if _he_ could touch her, kiss her...they'd be necking like teenagers all over the place.

Maybe Max was a bit more mature, reserved, and she certainly was more tolerant ( _she doesn't hit Alec as often)_ but that was to be expected, considering she ran the place.

So maybe that meant that whatever there was between them ( _ **if there ever was**_ , his hopeful side muttered before being pummeled by the rest of the chorus), it was not as important, as real as what he had once shared with her.

' _ **Or maybe they've been together since Manticore... they where breeding partners, maybe they never stopped being breed**_ _-'_

' _SHUT UP!'_

' _ **I was only saying**_ _...'_

He cursed his curiosity that had led him to ask Gem about the program, and to find out exactly how Max had met Alec...

In the end, he had chosen his present course of action because it was the one he was considering when he realized that he would drive himself crazy unless he acted _now_.

So he had gone looking for Max, determined to see her, no matter what.

' _STUPID!!_ he'd reflect later. _You should have known better than set yourself up like this, open yourself to disappointment and hurt!'_

Everything that day had looked promising; the sun was actually shining, on a rare, bright spring day in Seattle. He actually heard birds singing while he shaved! He thought for a moment that he had actually, finally lost it, but looking out the bathroom window he saw, on a scrawny tree out back, a couple of birds singing, perched next to a small cluster of new, green leaves and small, red-white flowers...

It seemed the world was trying to tell him something, he mused...

' _ **Yeah, for an English Lit major you never really understood the use of uplifting moments to underscore tragedy and loss...remember Shakespeare?'**_

' _Shove it!'_

After composing himself in front of the bathroom mirror he had set out for Terminal City, ready to face his fate - and the rest of his life.

### Yeah, right.

Anticipating his usual troubles getting to see Max, he had looked for a young x6, and told him that Mole needed to talk with Max asap, with just the right amount of authority without actually giving the kid an order. Sure enough, he dashed to the Command Center, with a smug Logan on his heels. He watched the kid talk to Dix and Luke, and heard Dix say that Max was exhausted after a mission the previous night, and was resting in her quarters.

So, he had gathered his courage and determination as a cloak around him, _" my rusty armor"_ he mused with a wan smile as he remembered a jab Max had made about him and windmills, a lifetime ago, and he went quietly to her room.

As he stood there, he felt nervous, unsure of himself, suddenly finding a myriad of flaws in his planned speech. He was second-guessing his motives when, suddenly, he heard a noise.

It sounded like a pained moan, and was followed almost immediately by the sound of a body hitting the ground and the strident crash of broken pottery...

MAX!

' _She's being attacked, she's seizing, she needs me!'_

So he opened the door to find Alec on the ground, Max straddling his hips, both naked from the waist up, his eyes closed in ecstasy, while she licked the hollow of his neck, raked the nails ( _newly manicured, she must have paid a visit to OC_ , his analytical mind noted) in one hand on his chest while the other plunged into the waistband of his jeans...

He remembered to breath, and was rewarded with the heady, musky scent of sex in the room.

Numbly, he turned and walked away in a daze.

' _ **I don't want to say "I told you so" but...'**_

' _SHUT UP! Just...not now...'_

He stumbled blindly through the empty corridors towards the sewer exit, only stopping when he run into a wall... a _scaly, foul mouthed, pissed off_ wall...

"Here you are! Who the hell do you think you are, using my name to order the x6's around? Just because _she_ puts up with you doesn't mean--"

"Shut up, Mole!" he snarled, surprising them both when the burly transgenic did just that.

He gazed coldly into the wide, disbelieving eyes and ground out his last words in Terminal City through clenched teeth.

"You're right. I'm _done_ with this shit."

With that, he pushed roughly past the stunned soldier, and walked out of what had been, for the last six months, his life.


End file.
